All,
I'm seeking colleagues who might volunteer their students as subjects
for an in-class experiment.  It takes about 50 minutes, students enjoy it,
and it has great pedagogic value.  I've conducted the experiment 3 times,
but I need many more subjects to produce statistically significant results.
 
The experiment asks students to analyze a picture (projected onto a screen)
to identify evidence.  The experimental goal is to determine the
percentage of the total items of evidence seen by individual students.
"Percentage of evidence seen" is then related to biographical data and to
experimental manipulations.
 
There are two forms of the experiment based on two pictures.  One
picture is of an operating room in a hospital.   Here students are asked to
identify evidence supporting the conclusions that the patient is either
dead or alive.  The other form is based on a picture of a "body outline"
on what appears to be a road.  Students are asked to identify evidence
supporting the conclusions that either there has been an automobile
accident or a shooting.
 
The body outline picture is relevant to legal studies classes because it
asks students to search for evidence related to a crime and a torts.  The
surgery room picture isn't directly related to substantive law, but like
other the other picture, it lets students become aware of how weak they
are in seeing evidence even when the concept (e.g. dead) is clear in their
minds.  The skill of seeing evidence is, I believe, a central part of "the
skill of thinking like a lawyer" developed in law school.  This
experiment is a part of a series of experiments using recent work in
cognition as a foundation for making clear exactly what mental
skills lawyers develop.  The other goal of the research is to
determine how to teach those skills to non-lawyers in a short time period.
 
I need a diverse group of subjects so both graduate and undergraduate courses
work.  The experiment has been approved by my campus Committee on
Experimentation on Human Subjects.
 
I you are interested, please e-mail me at [log in to unmask] or
call me at 303-556-5895.
 
Yours in service,
 
 
Ed Conry